Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Melbourne Age demonstrates today why it has become a nasty little joke on the Australian journalistic landscape with today's piece of front page sensationalism - Gillard accused of soft line on Tel Aviv.

This is nothing but a vicious attack on Gillard, one that would not be tolerated if the subject matter wasn't about the Age's favourite whipping boys - Israel and the Jews. The piece highlights a letter written to the Sydney Morning Herald by Ross Burns, a former ambassador to Israel who believes Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been too soft on Tel Aviv (by the way Jerusalem is Israel's capital) over the blockade of Gaza which is run by the outlawed terrorist group. Conveniently, neither Burns in his letter nor the Age mention this or the fact that Egypt is also involved in the blockade because of it's own security concerns.

In his spiteful attack, Burns raises "the propriety of Ms Gillard's partner, Tim Mathieson, being employed as a real estate salesman by the founder of the Australia Israel Forum, Melbourne property developer Albert Dadon." The article also cites the fact that Burns is supported by another former Australian ambassador to Israel, Peter Rodgers.

Mathieson's business connections with Dadon are no secret. They are matters which he has fully disclosed in the past. But non disclosure only seems to matter when the boot's on one foot. There is no attempt on the part of the Age to disclose the fact that, for a number of years, both Burns and Rodgers have shown sympathy to the Arab cause. Burns writes books (admittedly very boring books) about Arab culture. Indeed, it's fair to call both of them "Palestinian lobbyists" and this background information would be invaluable to Age readers in assessing their views on an article in which they attack the so-called "Israel lobby" or the "Jewish lobby". But the Age keeps it readers in the dark about the past association of both gentlemen with the Palestinian propaganda machine, of which the Age itself has chosen to be part with its one sided approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Age newspaper has for years turned the other cheek to the excesses of Palestinian terror. We rarely read about Hamas thuggery, its genocidal charter and its avowed policy to destroy Israel, it's treatment of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and its dreadful psychological warfare against his family. Nor do we hear much about incitement to violence against Jews in Palestine Authority media. When Hamas attacks mosques and kills dozens of worshippers, steals food from its own people and burns down school camps, the stories somehow miss the pages of this newspaper.

What we do get is bias dressed up as reporting from the likes of Paul McGeough who did a hatchet job on the Jewish State with his "insider's" view on the fraudulent Gaza flotilla which somehow missed the fact that the violence was initiated by Jihadist IHH activists on board on of the ships. Pity about the clear film of the mob attacking Israeli soldiers as they boarded the Mavi Marmara and even more so about the vision of the so-called "peace activists" throwing an Israeli overboard. McGeough could only retell a tale from a fellow traveller of throwing weapons overboard. The human being tossed over the deck was conveniently forgotten like so much of the truth about the excesses of terrorists in this region whose nefarious activities are airbrushed out of existence in the cause of producing sketches of a Palestine that doesn't really exist.

We know that the Age is not reticent about telling stories of Islamic Jihadists because this appeard in its papers last week - Hanging of eight-year-old turns many against Taliban. What chance is there that such a story would have appeared in the Age had the perpetrators been from Taliban's sister organisation, Hamas?

I can tell you the answer - absolutely nil because Fairfax and the Age are soft on Hamas.

Israel is subject daily to scores of false claims and slanders that receive a remarkable amount of credibility in Western media, academic, and intellectual circles even when no proof is offered.

Palestinian groups (including the Gaza and Palestinian Authority regimes), associated local and allied foreign non-government organizations, Western radical and anti-Israel groups, and politically committed journalists are eager to act as propaganda agents making up false stories or transmitting them without serious thought or checking.

Others have simply defined the Palestinians as the “victims” and “underdogs” while Israel is the “villain” and “oppressor.” Yet truth remains truth; academic and journalist standards are supposed to apply.

While regular journalists may ask for an official Israeli reaction to such stories the undermanned government agencies are deluged by hundreds of these stories, and committed to checking out seriously each one. Thus, the Israeli government cannot keep up with the flow of lies.

So the key question is to understand the deliberateness of this anti-Israel propaganda and evaluating the credibility of the sources.

An important aspect of this is to understand that Israel is a decent, democratic country with a free media that is energetic about exploring any alleged wrongdoing and a fair court system that does the same. To demonize Israel into a monstrous, murderous state—which is often done—makes people believe any negative story.

Some of these are big false stories—the alleged killing of Muhammad al-Dura and the supposed Jenin massacre—others are tiny. Some—like the claim Israel was murdering Palestinians to steal their organs-- get into the main Western newspapers while others only make it into smaller and non-English ones.

Taken together, this campaign of falsification is creating a big wave not only of anti-Israel sentiment but of antisemitism on a Medieval scale, simply the modern equivalent of claims that the Jews poisoned wells, spread Bubonic Plague, or murdered children to use their blood for Passover matzohs.

Come to think of it even those claims are still in circulation. Indeed, on June 8, the Syrian representative at the UN Human Rights Council (oh, the irony!) claimed in a speech that Israeli children are taught to extol blood-drinking. No Western delegate attacked the statement.

Here are three actual examples of well-educated Westerners believing such modern legends reported to me recently by colleagues:

--A former classmate, one told me, claimed that the Palestinians are living in death camps, being starved, etc. Asked to provide facts and provided with evidence to the contrary, he could provide no real examples. Finally, he remarked, `The truth is always somewhere in the middle.’”

--Hundreds of American college professors signed a petition claiming that Israel was supposedly about to throw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of the West Bank though there was zero evidence of any such intention and, of course, nothing ever happened.

--A British writer of some fame claimed, on the basis of an alleged single conversation with a questionable source, that Israel was preparing gas chambers for the mass murder of Palestinians. When asked if she was really claiming this would happen, she stated that it wasn’t going to happen but only because people like her had sounded the alarm to prevent it.

And what of the accusations of genocide contained in an article by sensationalist Israeli reporter Uzi Mahnaimi (even though his stories almost always prove to be wrong the Sunday Times never learns) and the respected Marie Colvin's November 1998 in The Sunday Times reporting Israel was attempting to build an "ethno-bomb" containing a biological agent that could specifically target genetic traits present amongst Arab populations? Or the Guardian's more recent distortion of documentation to claim that Israel was selling nuclear weapons to South Africa?

There is no limit. When stories are proven wrong, the damage remains, apologies are non-existent or muted, and no lesson is learned because the same process is soon repeated. (In the Guardian, it is repeated not only on a daily basis but sometimes several times a day!) But perhaps readers could learn to disregard what they have repeatedly seen has been untrue?

Here is one example plucked from today’s mail. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry claim Israel has seized seven oxygen machines intended for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and paid for by the Norwegian government. It said that a protest was being made to Norway. The story was picked up by several European newspapers. No evidence or specifics—what Israeli agency held them up? What dates? What hospitals were these for?--was provided.

Note, as in so many of these stories, the Israeli goal is said to be murder pure and simple. The message conveyed is: What kind of people would behave this way? The Israelis (or Jews in general) not only don't deserve to have a state, they don't even deserve to live. Wiping them off the planet would be doing the world a favor. Hmm, where have we heard this before?

Asked to look into the oxygen machine story, an Israeli official did so and pointed out that there are no controls over such imports into the West Bank so there would be no basis for holding up anything going there. As for Gaza, those directly involved in the process of sending in aid note that no applications to import such machines has been filed, there is no record of any such machines arriving, and thus nothing had been held up.

In short, the story is completely false, presuming that the Palestinian Authority health ministry won't provide documents and specifics. But that isn't going to happen as it will just be on to the next false story, hoping for a bigger media response.

Having seen so many such stories disproved over the years—as Israel’s credibility, while not perfect, has compared favorably with that of any Western democratic state—one might think a lesson would be learned. But as the great American journalist Eric Severeid remarked many years ago, nothing can protect someone when the media sets out deliberately to misunderstand and report falsely about them.

In addition, they should only repeat, report, or believe stories based on credible identified sources citing specific names, dates, and details. In addition, stories or claims should be internally logical and make sense given known facts. The idea that Israel enjoys killing or injuring Palestinians for fun does not meet that test.

Honorable journalists and scholars should take note and approach these false stories more skeptically. They should also reexamine their stereotypes and remember that their political views should be kept as much as possible out of their professional work.

Not so long ago, the above points would have been taken for granted as the most basic and obvious principles. They need to be relearned.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Here's something you won't read in your local broadsheet. It's from Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of Palestine Media Watch and it's about the so-called "good guys" in Palestine - the Palestine Authority. That's "good guys" as distinct from the "bad guys" over at Hamas although there are many in the media who don't see them that way even when they attack civilian targets from school yards, threaten genocide against Jews, oppress gays and Christian minorities, destroy school camps and that sort of stuff.

The host of a program about prisoners on official Palestinian Authority television described Jews as "our enemies" and Israeli soldiers as "wild animals" when she interviewed young children.

Her comments were made during two recent episodes of the PA TV program For You, which features interviews with the families of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. In an interview with the young sister of a prisoner serving a 13-month sentence, the PA TV host asked the girl if the Israeli soldiers bother the family when they visit her brother in prison. When the girl agreed, the host added: "They're wild animals, right? Aren't they wild animals?"

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

This is how Palestine Today views Israel and the Jewish people - i.e. no differently to the Flotilla Frauds and their media lackeys who shamefully lie about the so-called "peace activists" on that ship.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs) (9.55 pm)—I rise again to speak with deep sadness on the anniversary of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. This is the third occasion on which I have spoken on this anniversary in this place and I hope it will be the last. On 25 June 2006, Corporal Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a cross-border raid into Israel by the armed wing of Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation proscribed in Australia. Two of his fellow soldiers were killed in the raid. He was 19 at the time; he is now 23. For four years he has been held by Hamas. In contravention of the Geneva Convention, he is being held as a hostage by a terrorist organisation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and all other representatives have been denied access to him. For his family these have been agonising years. Hamas continues to hold Gilad Shalit as a bargaining chip, seeking to secure the release of hundreds of terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. It is important that leaders around the world continue to demand the release of Gilad Shalit. A former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in welcoming the easing of restrictions on Gaza by the Israeli government, yesterday repeated his call for Gilad Shalit to be released immediately. Let us be very clear about what Hamas is. This is a terrorist organisation that seized power in Gaza through a violent coup. It is a regime that tortures and murders independent activists, including trade unionists. The 1998Hamas Charter commits Hamas to establishing an Islamic caliphate in the Midd le East. It is committed to the destruction of the state of Israel and includes genocidal references aimed at Jews. Hamas is not an organisation that accepts anything that is known and understood about human rights in Australia. It has a totalitarian approach to all media and education in Gaza, which feature incitements to genocide and glorification of suicide bombing and terrorism. Internally, Hamas has carried out attacks on mosques, including in Rafah in August 2009, when the Hamas Brigade surrounded a mosque, firing rocket grenades and killing more than 20 Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl, because of what it perceived as a threat to its authority. Contrast the coverage of this event with the coverage of the recent tragic flotilla incident.

Reports on the true nature of Hamas, and the reasons for the ongoing blockade, have been absent in recent news coverage. Criticism of Israel ostensibly based on concern for the welfare and rights of residents of Gaza would be more credible if criticism were also directed towards the current rulers of Gaza, Hamas, and its behaviour, which is exemplified in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.

The Australian government has responded to the flotilla incident by attending to the welfare of Australians citizens involved by expressing concern about the loss of life and by calling for the establishment of an independent Israeli inquiry into the incident. It is very clear that this is necessary to ensure that there is no repeat of the Goldstone report approach. We have reiterated our support for Israel and recognise the unique security challenges that Israel faces—from Iran and the terrorist organisations that Iran supports, including Hamas. And we have called for the allowing of additional aid into Gaza. At no time has the Australian government called for a lifting of the blockade. In particular, the Prime Minister has confirmed that Australia recognises the need for Israel to prevent arms shipments into Gaza. There has been a welcome announcement overnight of an easing of the bloc kade. Considerable humanitarian aid has been going into Gaza from Israel for several years but more can be done. Israel has announced that it will publish a list of items not permitted into Gaza and will let all other items through. Construction material will be permitted for infrastructure projects under international supervision. Capacity at crossings will be increased to enable a significantly greater volume of goods into Gaza. To end this blockade is simple: Hamas must end the rocket attacks on Israel, of which there have been more than 5,000 in the last four years. It must cease importing arms from Iran. We should not forget Israel’s particular security situation. Israel continues to face existential threats in its region, in particular from Iran and its terrorist clients. Iran remains the great threat to the Middle East. Iran has funded and armed its terrorist clients, including Hamas, so that these terrorist organisations can continue their attacks on Israel. Israel has the right and the responsibility to ensure that Hamas does not build up an arsenal with which to terrorise Israeli citizens. Israel is entitled to maintain a legal blockade that intercepts arms which will be targeted at its citizens. Hamas must renounce violence, must renounce attacks on civilians and must renounce its commitment to the destruction of the state of Israel. It must cease violating international law and immediately release Gilad Shalit.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Naturally, had this news been about a Moslem leader killed in the Jewish State, we would have seen no end of headlines about this atrocity - Turkish Catholic leader beheaded but because it happened in Turkey it's a yawn.

It's a yawn and it can't be touched. Nor can Turkey's repression of its minorities like the bombing of the Kurds and its treatment of Armenians against who that country committed genocide in the last century. Nor can the fact that the Turkish government knew about and supported the embedding of IHH jihadists in the genocide flotilla that sailed to Gaza brim full of unwanted junk.

Silence.

There will be no vivid froth at the mouth accusations of hyenas from the usual nedia suspects because, as you will see tomorrow, they would all piss in their pants rather than tell the truth about terror.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Former ALP Minister Barry Cohen addresses the hypocrites and the hyenas in the media and asks Where Are the Protests?

Of course they are nowhere and those purport to protest on Gaza's behalf are nothing other than agents for the thugs who rule Gaza and oppress its people.

Israel's critics forget that Hamas is at war with Israel. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. But the prize for the hypocrite of the century must surely go to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He accused Israel of "state terrorism, a bloody massacre" and called the attack as being "like 9/11 for Turkey". That is obscene! All this is a bit rich coming from a country that refuses to acknowledge or have an inquiry into the alleged genocide of one million Armenians during World War I.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Senator RYAN (7.53 pm)—Several weeks ago we were informed that Israel had allegedly outrageously intervened to stop a so-called peace flotilla, with commandos launching themselves at a peaceful armada seeking nothing more than to take humanitarian aid to Gaza. Excuse me if I was a little cynical when I first heard the news—for, despite days of a highly orchestrated media campaign to vilify Israel and her defence forces, the truth subsequently came out. These were not peace activists; they were agents of provocation, radicals seeking a violent confrontation as they broke the legal maritime blockade of Gaza. I did not realise that peace activists were so well armed—in this case, with knives, chains, firearms, molotov cocktails and pepper spray. By viciously attacking the soldiers, they quickly betrayed their true agenda with their anti-Semitic cries, as they did by their refusal to cooperate with the UN, Israeli or Egyptian authorities, who could have facilitated the entry of the humanitarian materials to Gaza. This was no peace flotilla; it was part of an orchestrated campaign to vilify the state of Israel for doing nothing more than would be expected of us in this place: to protect her own citizens.

The blockade of Gaza is well founded in law, but it is also well founded in the entirely legitimate need for a state and government to take reasonable action to protect its citizens—for Gaza under Hamas cannot be treated as if it or they were a reasonable neighbour, and in no way can it be considered a partner for peace. This blockade has been undertaken to prevent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, no matter their race or creed. For some reason, certain people, NGOs and so-called human rights organisations expect Israel to tolerate a much higher level of violence than in Manhattan, Melbourne or Manchester.

To those who do not understand what Hamas does to the innocent civilians of Israel, I urge you to go to Sderot. Look at the remains of the rockets that have been fired from Gaza into that neighbourhood by Hamas—intentionally fired from amongst civilians in Gaza so as to make detection and prevention more difficult. Visit the children’s playgrounds in Sderot thatare made from reinforced concrete. Bomb shelters are painted as coloured snakes in lieu of a playground, as children need to be within seconds of safety as the sirens blare ‘code red’ as another rocket is launched. Speak to the mothers of the children to whom the word ‘red’ provokes fear because of these sirens and amongst whom mental illness—particularly anxiety, stress and depression-related disorders—are at unprecedented levels. Go and look at the schools which have concrete slabs above their roofs in an attempt to limit the carnage caused by terrorists firing rockets from only a kilometre away, to whom a school is nothing more than a target. This is the situation for Israeli towns along the border with Gaza.

And why is it that we do not hear of the brutal rule of Hamas and what its clear and stated agenda is? It cannot be through innocence; it can only be through ignorance. Hamas does not seek to hide its agenda, at least on its home turf. The truth is that Israel had allowed elections in Gaza. The corrupt Palestinian Authority lost to the terrorist organisation Hamas. The electoral attitude of Hamas .can be best summed up as, ‘One man, one vote, once,’ for elections are not regular. And pity those who might attempt to compete with them anyway, as thuggery and violence rule, rather than the ballot box.

Despite a lack of coverage of the reality of Hamas, we should be in no doubt as to what it is. It is a terrorist organisation, dedicated to the use of violence against innocent civilians to achieve its objective. In this case its objective is nothing less than the elimination of the Jewish state and of Jews in their homeland. Across Israel, Hamas has killed thousands, Jewish and Muslim alike. Shrapnel from terrorists does not discriminate. For this reason, Israel blockades the rogue state that is Gaza—but so does Egypt. Contrary to the perception created by some reports, this blockade does not prohibit the entry of food and medicines. It merely ensures that the materials going into Gaza are not diverted into the tools of violence and terror.

So what was the real agenda of this alleged peace flotilla? It was part of the campaign to delegitimise Israel in the West. It was intentionally aimed at weakening the historic friendship between many nations of the West and the only liberal democratic state in the Middle East. Over the past decade, a campaign of vilification against Israel has been undertaken by elements of the left in the West. Using NGOs, an occasionally ignorant media and a lack of understanding in the West of the existential threat faced by Israel, they have joined with other groups, including violent Islamic groups in the Middle East who seek to destroy Israel. The incidence of academic boycotts and the use of terms such as ‘apartheid’ are all an attempt to achieve through factual manipulation what the enemies of Israel have not been able to achieve through other means. It could not be achieved by three wars and it could not be achieved by an unprecedented terror campaign against civilians, so now these organisations seek to weaken Israel by demonising and delegitimising it, weakening its alliance with other nations to diplomatically cripple and hopefully destroy it. This was merely the latest media stunt in that campaign.

For those who doubt the intensity of the hatred of Israel and its people, have a look at what is on some of the television stations in its neighbourhood. I have seen a dramatic serialisation of that historic slur The Protocols of the Elders of Zion being broadcast on television as if it were a miniseries we would see on our own TV screens, and the portrayal of a Disney-like children’s character being killed by Jews on a children’s program.And, of course, there is the constant denial of the reality of the Holocaust.

These are just some of the examples of horrific anti-Semitism fed to millions of people via their TV screens, endorsed or tolerated by Israel’s Arab neighbour states. And while Hamas is of immediate interest with its control of Gaza, it is far from the only offender in creating and furthering racial hatred. The Palestinian Authority has maps on its walls that do not recognise the state of Israel. I have seen them. The schoolbooks the Palestinian Authority distributes to schools contain no reference to Israel or the three wars that were started against it. They have even named and funded a soccer tournament after a prominent suicide bomber. Israel and its citizens, including Muslim Arabs, do not live in the same world we do; they live in a world where their neighbours seek their violent destruction. No government is perfect. No state is perfect. But that does not mean one abandons those simply in need of security. In this case, it is the people of Israel who have that need—the need for no more than what we expect in Australia.

A group called Australians for Palestine has been running a campaign entitled ‘Time to hold Israel accountable’. Israel is accountable to its people via elections, courts and the rule of law, while Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s other neighbours are not. Israel has a right to protect itself, and the campaign to undermine this must be opposed. More importantly, it must be exposed. The lies and misrepresentation of facts and the application of double standards in considering Israel’s legitimate right of self-defence cannot go unanswered.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

It seems that it's no longer necessary for racists to blur their feelings by distinguishing between their hatred for Israel and Zionism on the one hand and the Jewish people on the other. This applles to letter writers and their publishers alike if you take a letter that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald this week.

At a time when the world is waking up to the massive scam perpetrated on it by a small band of Turkish backed jihadi terrorists on one of the boats of the Gaza Flotilla, the Palestine lobby is becoming desperate to avert the truth of Gaza and its repressive Hamas regime and has been advertising its propaganda line in many of Australia's newspapers. Yet the SMH allowed this bilious piece to see the light of day today.

Single voice is the sign of a lobby

Diane Armstrong (Letters, June 14) accuses Mike Carlton of making inflammatory claims in referring "mistakenly" to "the Jewish lobby". There are only "individual Jewish people voicing their opinions".

This claim is sheer sophistry. Jewish organisations in Australia appear to speak, and lobby, with one voice; it appears their only concern is to defend a pariah state. With endless dissembling they blame the victims of Israeli criminality.

Jews who oppose this wretched stance, notably the courageous Antony Loewenstein, are excoriated and excommunicated. Tribalism has trounced moral principles.

The Israel lobby is the Jewish lobby and its fellow travellers. I deeply resent the hold this lobby has on Australia's governments, which debases my integrity and threatens my personal security.

Evan Jones Glebe

Jones can't help it but one would expect much better even from Fairfax.

Monday, June 14, 2010

The motives of the so called peace activists on the Gaza flotilla have come under further question following the publication by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairsof information concerning the cargo:

* The equipment does not constitute humanitarian aid in the accepted sense (basic foodstuffs, new and functional equipment, fresh medicines)

* The humanitarian aid on all the ships was scattered in the ships’ holds and thrown onto piles and not packed properly for transport.

* The medicines and sensitive equipment (operating theatre equipment, new clothing etc) are being kept in cool storage at the Defence Ministry base.

* Some of the medicines have already expired, and some will expire soon.

* The operating theatre equipment, which should be kept sterile, care carelessly wrapped.

Of course, it's pretty well know that these "humanitarian supplies" are mostly available anyway through UN channels via Israel and what the hell, we know that the organisers didn't really give a rat's about delivering any aid to Gaza anyway.

Oh, and there's no truth in the rumour that Hamas has called for a shipment of vuvuzelas for the duration of the Soccer World Cup.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

The Sunday Age letters editor clearly resides in a different universe to the one occupied by the mob that inhabits the paper from Monday to Saturday. Three rational letters and just one mandatory hate-filled rant from a loony tunes pathological Israel baiter.

At least this selection brings some rationality to the discourse clouded by the agenda driven propaganda we've had to endure from Fairfax over the past weeks and months.

No parallels to be drawn

June 13, 2010

LINDA Grant (''Is this when public opinion turns against Israel?'' 6/6) has tried to draw some parallels between the voyage of the Exodus and that of the flotilla that sailed for Gaza, but no such comparisons can be made.

The passengers of the Exodus were refugees who, having narrowly escaped death in their homelands, were seeking a safe haven. The passengers of the Turkish flotilla were political activists seeking to make a stand.

The refugees aboard the Exodus had no choice; the passengers of the flotilla had the choice to dock at the port of Ashdod, submit their goods for checking, and accompany the goods to Gaza. The first ships of the flotilla submitted to this procedure and no one was hurt.

The refugees aboard the Exodus were sent back to a country that had already brutally rejected them, while the passengers of the flotilla returned to a faux-heroes welcome in Istanbul that showed the entire event to be a cynical exercise in political point-scoring.

SANDRA GILLIS, Elsternwick

Recognising Israel is a starting point

LINDA Grant asks whether the Gaza aid flotilla will finally tip public opinion ''against Israel and the whole Zionist project of a national home for the Jews''.

She clearly sides with Hamas, repudiating Israel's very legitimacy. Surely such recognition is a prerequisite for any meaningful negotiations.

MICHAEL MOND, Elsternwick

Middle ground must come first

MUCH of the media coverage of last week's Gaza flotilla raid portrayed the Israeli operation as ''botched'' and subsequently called into question Israel's role in blockading Gaza. But what exactly did the Israeli military do wrong? Lightly armed commandos boarded a ship that was attempting to breach a lawful naval blockade in the belief that they would escort the protesters into dock where their cargo could be examined and sent on to Gaza, their point being made. But the soldiers were confronted by a lynch mob intent on escalating the confrontation in order to create an international incident. It seems most of the world would only have been happy had the Israeli soldiers allowed themselves to be beaten to death.

Gaza is run by a terrorist organisation that espouses genocide of a neighbouring state as its official policy. The equation is not so complicated: if Hamas would recognise the right of Israel to exist in peace then the blockade could be lifted and none of this would be happening.

ALAN FREEDMAN, East St Kilda

How sympathies change

HOW times have changed since Otto Preminger made the Zionist propaganda film Exodus in 1960. Then, many admired these illegal European immigrants seeking a new home in Palestine. Now most countries either oppose or are concerned about Israeli conduct in the region since 1948.

Israeli Government propagandist Mark Regev said the Israeli naval boarding parties would continue as long as Hamas controls Gaza, but Israel has been stopping boats calling into Gaza long before Hamas was elected to power. Further, Israel's ''piracy'' in international waters is little different to the activities of Somali pirates, but where are the international navies to protect the aid flotilla boats?

Once taken illegally to Israel, the flotilla activists are jailed and forced to sign deportation orders. Bizarre behaviour, as none wanted to go to Israel in the first place.

ADRIAN JACKSON, Middle Park

"International navies" to protect Somali pirates? Of course Mr. Jackson. Just take a Bex and have a good lie down. It should be much better in the morning.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Friday, June 11, 2010

A colleague has a son studying journalism in the U.S who showed his professor some of the articles produced in the past fortnight in the Age and SMH. He loved them, called them "gold" and has added these gems to his collection of articles where the easily detectable extreme bias of journalists can cloud their ability to present a factual picture of the events they purport to be describing.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Did you know that Rachel Corrie has been written up in the media hundreds of times? She has become a heroin in many parts of the world because, depending on who you want to believe, she was either murdered by a bulldozer driver or died accidentally under the bulldozer that was demolishing a home used for arms smuggling. Often those arms were used to murder the forgotten Rachels. There's no doubt that they were murdered but the world's media turns its head away. The fact is that we live in a perverted world that regards Corrie, who worked for an organisation that has harboured terrorists as a heroin and disregards the forgotten Rachels.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

We have been witnessing an interesting phenomenon with the flotilla and its mixed cargo of peace activists and terrorists supported by enablers in the media who purport to be reporting on an event but are really an integral part of it. An example is the reporting in the Age of Paul McGeough who was in the flotilla but not on the Mavi Marmara on which the flotilla deaths occurred. By quoting the versions of partisan members of the flotilla and ignoring not only the other side's story but vision which contradicts what he reports then he becomes a part of the story. He whitewashes their violence and allows them to justify their behaviour so that they can continue to be regarded as peaceful activists artfully omitting vital parts of the story. We are told that one of the "peaceniks" claimed his group threw Israeli weapons overboard but leaves out that they also threw an Israeli soldier overboard. Reuters performed a similar whitewash when it originally published a photograph of an Israeli soldier injured by the mob cropping out a combat knife used by them. And some blood.

The blood is on the hands of them. Not just the IHH thugs who took the situation into their own hands and hijacked the mission but all who sailed in the flotilla and their cheerleaders in the media who falsified its narrative by their deception either directly by reporting what was clearly false information or by omitting vital facts that would have shed a different light on the story.

It is clear that many of those who boarded the flotilla took part because they genuinely believed in their cause and did so with the intention of taking part in a peaceful demonstration of their support for the people of Gaza (in my view they were misguided because their actions should have been directed at Hamas whose racist policy aimed at destroying Israel and committing genocide against the Jews is at the heart of the problem). However, a week after the deaths on the Mavi Marmara the silence of those who took part in the flotilla about the violence clearly instigated by the acts of the IHH and other Islamist terror groups when the Israeli army boarded the boats has been deafining. This can only mean that what was done by the mob that attacked the boarding party was done in their name.

The violence of the attackers became their own acts. Their own violence. The racism of those who told the Israelis to go back to Auschwitz became their racism and their hatred.

The media doesn't just rely on bent journalists to push anti-Israel agendas. Here are some Reuters photographs released by the IHH jihadist peace activists. The one below shows a knife (the usual stock in trade of the peaceniks who support Hamas). The second on the right which has the knife cropped was issued by Reuters for distribution to the world's media.

Well blow me down with a feather! Does anyone doubt that the person responsible wanted to do a blank page job for the peaceful activists who weren't supposed to be carrying combat knives?

And is there any doubt that next we'll hear from someone in this crowd who'll be bleating like a stuck pig that his or her own photographs (among the many confiscated from the activists by the Israeli's) were doctored? When it happens, it will be yet another pathetic copy cat performance by seasoned propagandists but as sure as night follows day, they'll try it. Pigs will fly and the naieve might even believe it!

Monday, June 07, 2010

The Australian newspaper has picked up on the blatantly partisan propaganda being spouted by Paul McGeough in the Fairfax Media and reports on the response of Jewish community leaders to the drivel were are receiving from this vile person whose output seeks to dehumanise the Israeli people. In doing so, he has shamed his profession with a message that serves only the thugs who seek only to terrorise Palestinians and Israelis alike in the region - Jewish leaders cry foul over Paul McGeough's reporting of Gaza crisis.

The Australian followed up that story with another one today by David Burchell which highlights precisely how disingenous and dangerously psychopathic this terror cheer squad is becoming for all people in the region - Flotilla rallies terror cheer squad.

The Age probably doesn't want to buy into this debate which is no doubt highly embarassing because the Age thinks journalists like McGeough are doing a great job.

A reader has pointed out that if the Age thinks McGeough is really painting a true or fair picture of what happened then it has a real problem because its Middle East correspondent Jason Koutsoukis had his name on a recent article which said this and which suggests one of them is not telling the true story:

Among the scores of people wounded on Monday were several Israeli soldiers whom the military said had been beaten with sticks and stabbed as soon as they landed on the deck. Video footage released by Israel appeared to back up its claim.

Iran is ready? For what? If you were to ask Hilaly, his record suggests you would receive disingenuous piffle of the type he has been offering for years whenever questioned about his war-mongering, especially the comments he has made in Arabic when he thought he would not be scrutinised in the wider society.

For this you can thank Paul Keating and his government and the NSW Labor machine, for overriding the advice of the Australian intelligence community that Hilaly be deported. He was too useful to Labor.

Hilaly's latest message is clear. Turkey has turned against Israel. And Iran is ready, through its military and its foreign proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to wage war against Israel. It has sent thousands of rockets to Lebanon and tried to do the same in Gaza, and is prepared to confront and destroy the Zionist entity, with Hilaly and his followers cheering them on.

Sharing the stage outside the Town Hall was Paul McAleer, the Sydney branch secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia. He chose his words carefully: ''This flotilla [confronting Israel's military blockade of Gaza] was hijacked by state-sanctioned murderers, who carry out their orders with deadly precision.''

State-sanctioned murderers who act with deadly precision. Sounds like Nazis.

The irony in McAleer's comments was elements of the union now known as the MUA functioned for decades as a criminal organisation, practising system-wide blackmail, extortion, intimidation, pilfering and featherbedding on the wharves. During World War II, the wharfies' union, controlled by the communists, undermined Australia's war effort. After the war, when dock operators began to introduce mechanisation on the wharves, union leaders pushed forklift trucks into the harbour.

When the Howard government and Chris Corrigan broke the MUA's stronghold on the ports 12 years ago, the union again used violence and intimidation. After the MUA lost the strike, the ports doubled their productivity. This is the moral authority on which the MUA stands.

Next on the Town Hall steps was a Greens NSW MP, Lee Rhiannon. She condemned Israel's "crime against humanity". Rhiannon is the embodiment of the common cause the hard left has made with the hard right of Islamic militancy. It is an interesting alliance. After the first modern Islamic revolution, in Iran, the new regime wiped out the communists, whose activists on university campuses had helped bring down the shah. Within its first two years, the Islamic regime had executed thousands of communists, student leaders and feminists.

Despite this warning, the hard left and Islamic militancy continue to find common cause because of a shared and defining antipathy to Western capitalism and Zionism.

Saturday, June 05, 2010

At around the time that Israel was expelling a load of gas bags in the form of publicity seeking, Hamas loving Free Gaza movement for their activity off its coastline the news was emerging that an Israeli natural gas find was far more lucrative than originally expected, that the country's gas needs will now be satisfied for generations and it is likely to become a major gas exporting nation - Israel set to become a gas exporter. The gas field is not that far north of where the action was taking place earlier this week.

This IDF photo shows peace loving non-violent Turkish activists beating the crap out of a young Israeli soldier for upsetting them during their choir practice. Before they were disturbed, they were leaning to sing "Kumbaya".

More evidence is emerging of the deceit of some of the flotilla activists and their media dupes who have been trying to paint the agitators who initiated the lethal violence on the Mavi Marmara as innocents praying during morning prayers - Clues undermine "Mavi Marmara" innocence.

There is evidence pointing to the fact that firearms were thrown overboard by passengers of the Mavi Marmara. Investigators found gun-sights and cartridge-magazines not fitting IDF weapons in a search of the ship, Israel Radio quoted IDF sources reporting Friday morning.

Here's something you would never even guess about if you read your local daily propaganda broadsheet:

Some of those aboard the ship recorded messages saying they intended to become shahids (martyrs in the cause of war against the infidels).

So it really was a suicide ship!

And just to prove that Al Jazeera cameramen can be more honest than your average purveyor of blarney, the report says that "Andre Abu Khalil, a Lebanese cameraman for Al-Jazeera TV, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara told Reuters some 20 Turkish men tried to prevent the boarding commandos from reaching the wheelhouse and commandeering the ship."

Using slingshots, metal pipes and bats they initially succeeded in wounding and overpowering four Israeli soldiers and dragging them below decks.

All they really wanted was some more Isreli soldiers to hold as hostages - just like their Hamas masters.

[If you think Mr. McGeough is going to reveal this in his eye witness accounts in the Age, then don't hold your breath!]

Friday, June 04, 2010

"THE Israeli attack was timed for dawn prayers - when a large number of the men aboard the Mavi Marmara were praying on the aft deck of the Turkish passenger ferry, as she motored steadily through international waters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea."

Good try Paul but we've seen the vision of what really happened. The thugs who attacked Israeli troops as they boarded the flotilla's suicide ship were wielding metal pipes, guns and slingshots - not prayer books.

Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of your efforts.

POSTSCRIPT:

Thanks to all those who pointed out the sheer stupidity that came from one of the imbeciles quoted in McGeough's article (and therefore a reflection on the writer):

"Matthias Gardel, a leader of the Swedish Palestinian support group, confirmed that the soldiers had been beaten, but insisted that those involved were unarmed and that in keeping with the ship's non-violent charter, the soldiers' weapons were thrown overboard."

(oh, I forgot to mention that in keeping with our peaceloving principles we also threw the unconscious soldier overboard)

In an article in today's Australian (Military media team too slow with truth), Abraham Rabinovich retells a story of an honest journalist who admits to being deceived by initial "eyewitness" reports of brutality of Israeli troops when they intercepted the Gaza flotilla:

In an article in the Jerusalem Post yesterday, editor David Horovitz writes that a foreign correspondent told him that only after he saw the video did he realise he had misrepresented the situation in the story he filed earlier in the day. "I realised I had done Israel an injustice."

Surprising confirmation of the Israeli claim that the ambush had been prepared by an organised group of militants was furnished by a video camera on the deck of the ship, which the navy appropriated. It shows a group of brawny men wielding metal staves, which they had cut from the ship's railings with small hand-held saws. One man holds a broken bottle. As a commando Zodiac comes alongside, another camera shows the militants throwing stun grenades into the craft."

Unfortunately, not all journalists are prepared to believe their own eyes preferring to give credit to obvious lies of witnesses who are hardly impartial and barely credible. Then again, not all journos are particularly honest these days.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

A while ago I came up with the suggestion that news reports on matters covering the Arab/Israel conflict which appear in the Melbourne Age should be read from bottom to top so that a better understanding of the issues can be achieved.

The theory works perfectly if you read today's offering from various authors including Jason Koutsoukis entitled "Pressure Mounts on Israel".

The article all but grudgingly concedes the Israeli version of the events that the bloodshed occurred as a result of the actions of provocateurs on board one of the ships who prepared an ambush for the boarding party.

"Among the scores of people wounded on Monday were several Israeli soldiers whom the military said had been beaten with sticks and stabbed as soon as they landed on the deck. Video footage released by Israel appeared to back up its claim.

"Israel Defence Forces spokesman Arye Shalicar told The Age last night that nine people were confirmed dead in the incident. He said earlier suggestions that up to 19 had died were based on 'a myth that has been mistakenly reported'.

"Reports in the Israeli media claimed the commandos were faced with a terror attack, and that in the end a massacre was prevented."

These paragraphs did not come until well into an article which begins with stories of demonstrations and international condemnation of the Israelis and yet the facts behind what happened on the death ship, the Mavi Marmara are buried deep inside the article and away from the sensational front page story.

This means that the headlines and the majority of the first part of the article condemns Israel as guilty and a few paragraphs make it clear that its soldiers were surprised and attacked, not by peaceful demonstrators but by terrorists embedded on one of the ships. That these terrorists could have taken over the flotilla's agenda thus duping the peace activists, the Israelis and the rest of the world is not discussed. That they were members of the notorious IHH, a branch of the Moslem Brotherhood, which financed most of the flotilla with the blessing of a Turkish government was ignored. The fact that their cause is to support the vicious Hamas junta which controls Gaza and is responsible for the continuing siege will never be mentioned.

Of course, if we take the grudging concession in this article to its full extent, it must mean that the activists who died were part of a terrorist operation designed to achieve a massive propaganda victory for their cause but don't hold your breath waiting for one of the Age analysts to tell you that!

One wonders whether the thought of a massive terrorist scam would have even crossed their minds had Israel not made available a video taken of the events as they unfolded.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Israel has blundered its way into another international incident by allowing the extremist organisers of the Free Gaza flotilla to dictate the terms in the bloody confrontation they so desperately sought. It doesn't matter that some of the activists on the mission might have had peaceful intentions, the Israelis must have been aware that the organisers' sole aim was to create a violent scenario even if it involved the deaths of some of those among them who were more than just civilly disobedient. Israeli army video footage clearly shows the so-called "demonstrators" attacking its soldiers boarding the Turkish ship with knives, axes, iron bars and at least two firearms. Earlier, they had responded to Israeli army warnings with calls of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad." These people prepared their weapons in advance for the specific purpose of precipitating a violent confrontation.

But this is no surprise. One of the main organisers of the flotilla is the radical Islamist Turkish group IHH, which labels itself as a humanitarian organisation but in fact supports Hamas and several Jihadist organisations in Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Algeria, Chechnya and has ties with Al Quaeda.

With sympathetic journalists embedded in the flotilla, Israel can expect a pasting from those like Fairfax's Paul McGeoch who has form in this area. Today's Age headline alone shows where that newspaper believes the primary blame lies for the deaths. But will the role of IHH in this operation even get a mention when the events of yesterday are described in our media and will those who report on the violence even bother to watch the video evidence that damns the violent "demonstrators" and their monstrous cause?